For Both of Us
by dreamsweetmydear
Summary: In the face of a major loss, it's easy to feel alone. Luckily, Tim's team has his back. A Help Haiti fic for Fingersnaps at the NFA forums. Already complete. Will post one chapter per day.
1. Part I

**From the author's desk: **So this is a fic won by Fingersnaps on the NFA Forums during our Help Haiti auction back in spring. The prompt I was given was **Tim in isolation**, with the added request of seeing the team help Tim come out of said isolation.

The chapters are extremely short, as I was also sort of experimenting with my narration style, so please don't let the small word count fool you. That's how it's supposed to be.

I hope you all enjoy this!

**Disclaimer:** _NCIS_ and its characters are the property of Donald P. Bellisario and his associates. This was written strictly for non-profitable entertainment purposes. All original characters are mine to claim.

**Warning!:** Minor character death. Tissues strongly suggested.

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_**For Both of Us**_**  
by **_**dreamsweetmydear**_

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**Part I**

_"Hey, I'm at the restaurant. Where are you? Let me know if you're running late."_

He unlocks the door to his apartment, and walks through the threshold in a daze. Mechanically, he drops the keys and wallet on his writing desk, and moves slowly into his room.

His dog comes to him, gently nuzzling his hand. The dog knows something is wrong with his master when he doesn't respond with the customary rub behind the dog's ears.

_"…This isn't like you. Why aren't you answering your phone? I'm getting really worried…"_

He isn't aware of much of anything, too lost in fragmented thoughts of pain, and grief, and death.

He doesn't understand how this happened.

_"Hello?"  
"Is this Agent—"  
"Yes that's me. Who is this?"  
"Sir, I'm calling from Washington Adventist Hospital—"  
"What happened to Sarah? Is she all right?"  
"…Sir, you should probably come as quickly as possible."_

He walks into his bedroom, his dog following him faithfully as he goes to the far corner of the room and sits down, curling himself into the space as much as his 6'1" frame will allow.

He breathes slowly, steadily. One. Two. Three. His breath catches at the fourth, and he exhales shudderingly before breathing in again.

A sob breaks partway through on the sixth before he bites down hard on his lip, while his shoulders tremble and his eyes squeeze shut, her image waiting for him there.

_"I'm not going to make it, am I?" she whispers, her gaze heavy with pain.  
He feels his eyes stinging. "No." His voice cracks.  
"Help me," she pleads, her eyes wet with tears and the fear of the unknown, of death.  
"I can't. Not this time," he says, his voice breaking, and his vision blurs._

He feels the presence of his dog nearby, and wraps his arms around the beast, burying his face in the warm fur of his pet.

_Her hand is warm and small in his, and he laces his fingers with hers.  
"I'm scared," she says, and tears roll down her cheeks.  
"I know. Try not to be," he whispers, gently thumbing the salt water from beneath her eyes.  
He squeezes his eyes shut, keeping his own tears from falling anymore.  
He has to be brave for her, and thinks of those he's lost already._

His body aches with tears, with loss. This shouldn't have happened. This didn't happen. It's just a bad dream.

His world is shattered, a million little pieces at his feet.

_"I have friends on the other side, remember?" he tells her. "They'll take care of you."  
He knows his smile is tremulous, but is thankful when he is rewarded with s similar smile.  
"Tell me about them again," she asks. "So I'll know them when I see them."  
And he speaks of his dead friends, fighting to keep his voice steady as her eyes begin to droop._

He isn't aware of when his grip slips from around his pet, and when he falls to his side, consumed by the memory of his last moments with her, their last goodnight—the exact moment his heart cracked, splintered, and crumbled into tiny, lost, aching pieces.

_"Go to sleep," he tells her. "I'll be right here."  
"I love you," she whispers.  
"I love you too," he murmurs back, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead. "Sweet dreams."  
"Sweet dreams," she mumbles back as she drifts into sleep.  
It's not long before the heart monitor flatlines._

"Why? Why did it have to be you?" he cries brokenly in the corner, eventually drifting off into an exhausted sleep.


	2. Part II

**Disclaimer:** The George J. Mitchell scholarship program is not my idea. It is an actual program sponsored by the US-Ireland Alliance.

**Part II**

**Channel 7 News:**  
_"Today, students across the Waverly University campus have come together to honor Sarah McGee, a student who died Thursday night after sustaining injuries in an accident that took place at the intersection of Willard Road and Carson Boulevard, just outside of campus. Her death is the second that has taken place at this intersection, the first being three years ago of a member of the admissions staff, and this accident is the sixth in the last year._

_Students and faculty are banding together to petition the city of Silver Spring to replace the stop signs at the intersection with traffic lights, as the intersection currently poses a hazard to the safety of not only the campus community, but the larger Silver Spring community as well._

_Sarah McGee was set to graduate this semester, and was selected as one of 12 George J. Mitchell Scholars, a coveted award sending graduate students to Ireland for a year to study in the program of their choice. Our condolences go out her family."_

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Tim doesn't remember much of the last few days. He feels disconnected from his family, from his friends, from the world.

Because every time he closes his eyes, he flashes back to Sarah's last few moments with him in the hospital. Her dark eyes full of pain, her voice full of fear.

And those moments morph into other memories, memories from when they were younger. When he was visiting from college and was babysitting while his parents went out, and the games they played. Helping his mom put her to bed in the early days when she still slept in her crib, reading to her, getting in snowball fights, teasing her, her teasing him, telling her ghost stories, soothing her when she crawled into his bed because she was too stubborn to admit the stories scared her. That time she won the regional spelling bee, that time she won an award for her poem in her high school literary magazine, her voice breaking when she lost at the science fair because she couldn't do him proud.

So many moments that wouldn't happen, stolen from him in a single night. She would never get to embarrass him in front of his far-in-the-future children, she would never get to be "the cool aunt." He would never get to see her become a writer, would never get to see her married, would never see her become a mother.

Each memory, each would-have-been-moment makes the place where his heart should be throb with a sharp ache like being stabbed.

For the umpteenth time, the thought crosses Tim's mind that he should have picked her up from her dorm for her celebration dinner, instead of letting her drive herself over.

Life continues to revolve around Tim. Somehow, someone gets him to his parents' place in Maine in time for the funeral. In a moment of awareness, he sees her casket being lowered into the ground, and he finds the late spring weather too cheerful for something like this. And then he's back in his little apartment in Silver Spring. Someone from the team comes by each day to bring him food, check on him, walk the dog for him, see how he's coping, try to bring him out of his grief.

But something inside of Tim is too lost, too broken right now. All he can do is sit in his bed or at his writing desk, wasting away in the memory of his beloved little sister.


	3. Part III

**Part III**

It's been two months since Sarah died.

Tim has begun to come back to work again, has begun to take care of himself again, has begun to get out of the house again. But there is no life in his actions.

He feels like he died with her that night.

"Come out with us for a drink tonight, Probie," Tony says after work. "You've barely been out of your apartment. It'll do you some good."

Tim declines. He can't face the concern in his friend's eyes. Tony doesn't understand what he's going through.

"Timmy…she wouldn't want you to live like this. Sarah would want you to be happy," Abby tells Tim as she wraps him in a hug a few days later while they work in the lab.

Tim knows Abby means well, but she wasn't there. She didn't see how Sarah suffered at the end.

His sister shouldn't have died that way.

He should have been able to do something about it. He's her big brother, for God's sake.

Tim is aware of Ducky observing him every time he steps into Autopsy, of Gibbs watching him when he comes into work, of Ziva's understanding glances across the bullpen, and is thankful that they haven't said anything to him, or pushed him to come out, or pressed him to tell them how he's feeling, because he really just can't right now.

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It's been two months, three weeks, and four days since Sarah died.

It's nearly one in the morning, and Tim sits at his typewriter, fingers idly brushing the keys, a piece of paper sitting inside, waiting to hold the words locked inside of him.

But his words have become lost in the darkness of his grief.

As he stares at the paper, his mind drifts off into a memory. Sarah is standing next to him, reading over his shoulder and snickering at his word choice and his characters as he works on the very first draft of _Deep Six_.

_"Seriously? 'Karen' is okay, but 'Tommy'? Who the hell is named 'Tommy' anymore? He sounds like he's part of the _Rugrats_ cartoon."  
"Ugh. Tim, you write like an amateur! I write better than you, and I'm younger!"  
"Oooh. Nice description. Much better than the stuff in your other pages!"  
"'Lisa'? She's from _Israel_ right? Doesn't sound like a very Israeli name to me."_

His heart aches and he wipes his eyes of the tears slipping down his cheeks as he pulls himself back from the memories. He glances at the typewriter once more before retreating to his room.

The paper sits inside, still blank.

Three days later, Ziva shows up at his apartment, and forces him to dress and come out with her for a walk to the nearby park. Tim decides to bring Jethro with them.

"Sit," she says when they come to a bench, and Tim lets Jethro off his leash before taking a seat next to Ziva.

For a moment, they say nothing to each other, both their gazes facing towards the park in front of them. It's Ziva who breaks the silence.

"I know what you're doing," she says, her voice soft. "I did it too, when my sister was killed."

Tim remains silent, remains facing the park. Ziva does not turn toward him, but he feels her hand as it settles on top of his own.

"We are the older siblings. We should have been able to protect our little sisters. We made that promise when they were born, and we failed to fulfill that promise because we have lost them before they even really had the chance to live. So we hold on to the grief, so that we will never forget our failure. We do not allow ourselves happiness, because we aren't meant to have it, because our little sisters will never know happiness again, because they suffered through their deaths, and did not go peacefully."

Still Tim says nothing, but he bites his lip and takes deep breaths as he tries his best not to cry in front of Ziva, but can't help the tightening of his hand on hers, or the tears that leak out of his eyes.

Ziva's voice is shaky when she speaks again. "What we forget, Tim, is that by holding onto the grief, we do a disservice to our little sisters. Because little sisters love their siblings unconditionally, no matter how much they fight with us or tease us or irritate us. They cannot rest peacefully while watching us suffer."

Her grip on his hand tightens just a bit, and Tim feels a faint tremble in Ziva's hand. He bows his head and glances at her from the corner of his eye, and takes note of the stoic expression on her face, and extra brightness in her eyes.

"I miss her," he confesses, his voice choked. "So much that it hurts."

She looks at him, a sad smile on her face. "I know."

"I don't want to lose her."

She hugs him then, her arms tight around him as he begins to sob. "But she is already gone. She is already gone."

"So what do I do?" he cries into his friend's shoulder.

"Let go of your grief, Tim."

"How?"

"I cannot tell you that, though I wish I could," she tells him, and he notices the roughness of her voice. "But I know you will find a way."


	4. Part IV

**Part iV**

He feels emotionally and physically drained by the time Ziva brings him back home, and he doesn't have the energy to do anything but fall into bed. He is asleep by the time he hits the pillow, and when he wakes the next day, he finds it is close to noon and too late to go to work.

There is a hollow feeling in his chest, and he realizes that for the first time in a long time, he has slept without dreaming of Sarah.

Somehow this makes him feel worse instead of better.

The rest of the day passes in a haze, and that night he finds himself slowly making his way down the stairs into Gibbs' basement, where he takes a seat on the last step.

Tim is silent as he watches the older man work the sander against the wood. There is a meticulous care in Gibbs' rhythmic action, and an atmosphere of peace permeates the dusty room. The expression on the older man's face is calm and reflective and warm, as though lost in a happy memory.

Tim blinks, surprised.

There is no sense of grief here.

Tim thinks back to what he knows about his boss and his boat building habits. The secret to getting the boat out of the basement is still a secret, and up until this point, he has always been under the impression that boat building was something Gibbs did to clear his head, nothing more.

"Did you build a boat for Shannon?" Tim doesn't even realize that he's asked the question aloud until he sees Gibbs pause in his sanding to look at him for a moment, before he turns back to continue what he was doing.

"Yeah."

Silence settles over the basement again, and Tim continues to watch his boss sand his boat before an observation pops out of his mouth.

"You don't grieve for them anymore."

"No, I don't."

"How did you stop?"

"By living for them instead." Tim can hear what isn't being said—through the work he does with NCIS, through the boats he builds, through the way he deals with all the children and mothers and wives they meet everyday.

"Did it hurt to build Shannon's boat?"

Tim watches as Gibbs continues to sand for a moment, before he puts the hand tool down on his work bench. "Some days were easy, and some days weren't. But by the time I finished, it had become easier for me to celebrate her instead of mourn her. She's become a little part of every boat I've built since then." Tim watches the older man empty a Mason jar and pour a couple fingers of bourbon for himself. "It still hurts to think of them every now and then, but in some ways it's easier now too."

Tim feels his eyes beginning to droop as he watches Gibbs go back to working on his boat. He doesn't realize he'd dozed off until he feels his shoulder being shaken. Tim blinks blearily up at Gibbs, who pats his shoulder and helps him to his feet and up the stairs to the living room couch, where Tim drops boneless into the cushions.

The last thing Tim hears as he feels a blanket being draped over him is Gibbs wishing him good night.

That night, Tim dreams of Sarah again, but not of her death. Instead it is of the two of them on Halloween ten years prior, with eleven-year-old Sarah dressed as a medieval princess with a sword strapped to a belt at her waist and a fake sorcerer's staff in her hand.

_"I'm not just any princess! I'm a warrior too!"_

When Tim wakes, his cheeks are wet with tears again, but there is a smile on his face, and an idea in his head. And for the first time in days, he actually takes notice of the dawn sunlight streaming through Gibbs' living room curtains.


	5. Part V

**Note:** For those who either don't know or don't remember, **Rashida** is a character I introduced in my story _Beginning in the Name of God_ as Sarah's roommate.

**Part V**

Tim sits in front of his typewriter like he has so many times in the last few months. A fresh piece of blank white paper sits in the machine, and his fingertips rest on the keys.

A jazz record plays softly in the background, and his pipe rests on the table beside the typewriter.

The words are there. He can feel them pressing around his mind, as if wanting to burst forth.

But Tim is nervous about what he's about to start writing.

Sarah was the one with the vivid imagination after all. This was originally her idea.

Tim closes his eyes, and thinks of Sarah. Her smile, her competitive nature. Her encouragement when he first started writing.

_"Don't worry about the details right now. That's what editing is for. Don't worry, Tim. I'm sure you'll do a great job."_

His mind drifts back to the memory of his sister on Halloween ten years ago, and Tim opens his eyes again.

He keeps that image in his head, and soon the rapid _clickety-clack_ of typewriter keys fills the apartment.

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**From **_**The Gazette**_**  
"New traffic light installed just outside Waverly University; community celebrates."**

After battling Montgomery County officials for the last four months, the Waverly University community celebrates the new traffic light installed at the intersection of Willard Road and Carson Boulevard, replacing the two-way stop sign that was there previously.

A memorial plaque was also installed into the northwest corner of the intersection, honoring Terrence Campbell, a member of the admissions staff who died three years ago, and Sarah McGee, a student who was supposed to graduate in May who died earlier this spring. Both tragically lost their lives due to injuries sustained in accidents at this intersection. It was finally Miss McGee's passing that served as a catalyst for the campus community to do something about the dangerous crossing just off campus.

"I think Sarah would be really happy to see the new signal," says Sarah's roommate and one of the main petitioners for the traffic light, Rashida Saiwala. "She hated that intersection, but she used it all the time because it was the quickest route to get to her brother's place. I only wish she could be here to see it."

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The last few days have been tough, and he has been unable to write. It has simply been too hard to keep thinking of Sarah. But when Tim looks at the paper and sees the article there, he finds himself smiling, and feeling a little better than he has been.

Sarah would be proud of what Rashida and the rest of her friends had done. He makes a note to himself to make sure to get in touch with his sister's roommate to thank her.

Sitting down in front of his typewriter, Tim glances back at the newspaper that sits next to his computer, and finds it in him to write again. He inserts a fresh sheet of paper into the machine, and once more the sounds of typewriter keys fill the apartment, and words begin to flow onto the page.


	6. Part VI

**Part VI**

It's been nearly a year since Sarah died. The anniversary is in three weeks, and Tim has a lot to do before that date. He needs to do a final read through, take care of any last minute suggestions from the editor, and decide on the cover art before the book can be sent to the presses next week.

And most troublesome of all, he needs to write the dedication.

His heart aches a bit when he remembers how Sarah helped him with these last few details when _Deep Six_ and _Deep Six: Rock Hollow_ were at this stage. But he smiles, because in a way, Sarah has been with him the whole way through the process this time.

And he knows that while his sister may be gone, he still has his friends, who are in some ways just like his siblings.

So when he gives Abby and Ziva a call that evening requesting their help this weekend with final read throughs, he's not surprised when they say yes. After a little more thought, he also asks Rashida to come and help this weekend. He wants her to help him pick out the cover art.

Friday night finds Abby and Ziva sitting around Tim's living room, pens in hand to catch any missed errors as they read through the first book Tim will put out under his own name, while Tim sits at his writing desk, slowly editing in some of the suggestions his editor had for him.

He is startled when he feels a pair of arms wrap around him from behind, and the soft scent of roses and gunpowder wafts to his nose. "This is a really great book, Tim," Abby tells him as she hugs him from behind. "It's like the main character is Sarah from another life."

"It was Sarah's idea, actually," he confesses quietly. "She always wanted to write something like this, and used to write short stories about this kind of stuff. We lost the stories she'd written when she was younger in the shuffle when Mom and Dad remodeled the house a few years back, but I remembered some of the names of the characters and countries she'd created."

"Well, you have definitely done Sarah's idea justice McGee," Ziva says as she comes to stand next to the writing desk. "I think she would be honored to see how well you have brought her world to life."

"I hope so."

Late that night, Tim wakes up from falling asleep at his writing desk, trying to remember what he was dreaming of, and knowing only two things: that Sarah had been in it, and she had been smiling.

On instinct, he places a new sheet of paper into the typewriter, and begins to type one more time.

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It's the day before the release of his new book. It is also the one year anniversary of Sarah's death.

Tim has taken a few days off of work to visit his parents, so that they can go together to visit Sarah. He stands with them in front of her tombstone, his mother's hand clasped tightly in his own, simply thinking of her.

And while Tim feels sadness as he stands in front of Sarah's gravestone and remembers how she died, he also finds himself able to smile while remembering how she lived.

"I love you, sis."

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_**The Lioness of Liore  
Book I: Warrior**_**  
The debut series by Timothy McGee**

**Dedication Page:**  
My sister Sarah always wanted to be a writer, and specifically wanted to write fantasy novels for young adults. She used to have me read her short stories when she was younger, and loved telling me she wrote better than I did. She came up with these characters and this world many years ago, but she never got the chance to see her dream come true.

I'm writing this to fulfill her dream, and to keep my sister's memory alive.

I hope I did her proud.

I love you, Sarah.

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**-/END/-**

_"As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us." - Sascha, as posted on MotivateUs(dot)com  
_


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